For many American Jews, autumn is the best time of year. The High Holidays bring together families and friends, as do Simchat Torah and Sukkot. Day schools and Sunday schools fill up as the new year begins. The change to crisp weather lends itself well to Friday night walks to the synagogue, too.
However, this year, things are different. Twelve months ago, Hamas militants attacked Israeli citizens on Oct. 7 at the Nova music festival and kibbutzim near the Gaza border, killing 1,200 people and capturing about 250 hostages. Since then, tensions have heightened. Israel remains at war with Hamas and now Hezbollah, too.
All Jews are impacted by the conflict in their homeland, but some are affected more than others. For those who have tangible ties to Israel, this war is especially difficult.
Yonina Jacobson is a Bala Cynwyd resident with family members who live in Israel, including two children who have served or are serving in the Israel Defense Forces. She said it’s hard to see a place she loves so much go through so much turmoil. Jacobson was celebrating Simchat Torah with her extended family in Israel when the rocket sirens went off.
“When that happened, all of the young soldiers in our family started peeling off. My cousin’s son served in [the] Dudevan [special unit], and I clearly remember him saying goodbye to his wife,” she said. “He went incommunicado for a day, and then his brother — who is also in special forces — found his body.”
Barbara Rosenau is a member of Temple Sinai in Dresher who served as director of adult Jewish learning at Gratz College from 2012 to 2016 and is now a master’s student in antisemitism studies. She said her family in Israel has summed up the experience of living there well.
“They said it’s paradise 98% of the time, but 2% of the time, it’s not,” she said.
Rosenau said the anniversary of Oct. 7 is painful, but it also means that we are one year further removed from the atrocities. She told a story about Israeli friends whom she stayed with 20 years ago and keeps in touch with to this day.
“They had to evacuate because they were near Gaza, so they had to go to Jerusalem,” she said. “They were nervous about their grandson’s bar mitzvah, but the family hosted it in Jerusalem instead and people came.”
Stories of resilience like this — Israelis doing the best they can in a bad situation — are one of the reasons that fellow Gratz student Liz Berger converted to Judaism in 2018.
Berger was married to a Jew and had been interested in Jewish studies since she was younger, but she didn’t have a full grasp of Judaism until she visited Israel.
“[My husband’s] family eventually took us all to Israel, and that helped me understand the point of view more,” she said. “It’s so much different when you see their reality with your own eyes.”
The Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El member said life in Philadelphia acquainted her with almost exclusively Jews of Ashkenazi heritage. When Berger went to Israel, she saw the full spectrum of Jewish life — Sephardic Jews, Black Jews and others.
Rosenau, who was born and raised a Jew, said visiting Israel does something similar for her, even though she has been a part of the community her whole life.
“I was in Israel in May with the Federation,” she said. “You see coins that are thousands of years old that have Hebrew writing on them, and you can’t help but have that connection to Jewish identity.”
Rosenau, like so many others, remembers where she was on Oct. 7.
“I was at Temple Sinai for services, and we heard about this and we were all in disbelief,” she said. “We had always had a sense that Israel has the Iron Dome, and we’re going to be able to fight this off.”
Jacobson said that the fact that the conflict is still roaring is not what her or others were hopeful for when things unfolded last October.
“It’s very sad, because if we were settled in a new and secure reality, then [the anniversary] would have been something triumphant and steadfast,” she said. “And now everything feels so tenuous. [We need] lots of hugs.”
For Jacobson, the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks is bitter but not without hope. Many Jews feel the same way, although lots are just as focused on domestic issues like rising antisemitism.
Berger said it comes down to educating the masses on the history of Israel as the Jewish homeland, as difficult as that may be.
“Particularly since Oct. 7, I feel like everyone that isn’t Jewish that clicks on an Instagram story or something I post about antisemitism is learning something, and that is one way to combat the horror and the wickedness,” she said.